This invention relates generally to telephone communications methods and apparatus and in particular to a telephone conferencing and inquiry handling method and apparatus which enable automatic pooling or conferencing of incoming telephone calls.
Telephone conferencing systems have been available from both the private sector and from the telephone operating companies for many years. These systems generally provide intercommunications for a plurality of previously identified individuals. Thus a typical "conference call" might include five or more individuals, each able to talk to and hear any other individual connected into the conference. Conferences of this type are most often prearranged and typically a single operator calls each participant. The telephone company equipment enables a telephone operator to arrange the conference call, once the operator is given the telephone addresses of the persons involved. More recently, the telephone company and other communication equipment manufacturers have made available equipment with which a local "private" operator arranges, without requiring assistance of the telephone utility, a conference call with selected designated individuals.
There also exist information disseminating systems with which an incoming caller specifies a selected tape recording, and an inhouse operator connects the caller to it. There are other telephone listening systems which enable incoming callers to listen to a common recording such as the well known Weather or Time recordings provided by local telephone companies.
The potential applications for the telephone conferencing concept have been barely tapped, however, due at least in part to the unavailability of the necessary equipment.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a telephone conferencing method and apparatus which enable totally random and unscheduled incoming calls to be flexibly interconnected, substantially at will, to provide intercommunications between plural callers. It is also an object to allow the callers to be individually and automatically routed through a series of defined conferencing steps.
The objects of the invention also include providing a telephone communications method and apparatus for collecting and redistributing information for use by incoming telephone callers. Another object of the invention is a telephone communications method and apparatus which flexibly and easily interfaces with a plurality of incoming spontaneous calls to pool or interconnect the calls into selected groupings or conference pools. Further objects of the invention are a telephone conferencing method and apparatus which provide simple operator control, which enable substantially automatic operation of the equipment, which enable automatic monitoring of incoming speech energy levels, which provide high reliability, and which enable the interchange of ideas between incoming callers.